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The stream of Harper books seems endless, and this month, the National Post‘s political columnist and Editorial and Comments Editor Andrew Coyne takes on two of them: Mark Bourrie‘s Kill the Messengers: Stephen Harper’s Assault On Your Right to Know, and Michael Harris‘s Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover.

What happens, you may ask, to top-dog politicians once they retire or get defeated at the polls? Andrew Cooper addresses that question in Diplomatic Afterlives, homing in on superstars Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev and Tony Blair. Our reviewer Tom Flanagan, a fascinating political retirée himself, has his own answers and observations.

There is a charming and elegant writer in Canada who is as much in love with the old-school instruments of composition—pens, pencils, paper—as with the words those instruments can produce. His name is WaysonChoy and of course he was the perfect candidate to review Ted Bishop‘s intriguing new book, The Social Life of Ink.

Finally, I need to use this Editor’s Note to say goodbye. After twelve gratifying years, I am vacating the editor’s chair here at the LRC. Time to get back to some writing of my own, I feel, and I’ve limbered up with a review/essay based on four new Canadian books that examine, from many perspectives, our changing notions of community and connection in a wired world. So goodbye to all LRC readers and writers. It’s been an enormous pleasure. And I hope for the continued health and success of this amazing magazine, both in print and online.

Bronwyn Drainie
Editor

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